Americans living in the age of Obama are increasingly familiar with the types of problems that make doing business in Greece very difficult: a myriad of regulations and bureaucracies, strong labor unions, corruption, high cost and risk of being an employer, and poor protection for investors. In the EU Greece is the worst for starting a business in, in the world it ranks 140 out of 180 countries.http://boards.fool.com/tea-party-goes-global-29563284.aspx

OMG! Another few years and the US will be just like Greece!

That certainly is the implication one would draw from MrCynic.

I tried to google his factoid about Greece and found one that was fairly close. (No link from MrCync as usual.)

OMG! If we let Obama have a second term, the US will be the best place in the world to do business.

Tea Partiers Arise. We must not let this stand.

That's a rather simplistic analysis. Without the corresponding data and the methodology it's rather impossible to determine if we're in fact improving or merely getting worse at a slower clip than those we surpassed. It's like crime stats... if two cities switch places is it because one got safer while the other more dangerous, both got safer but one got a lot safer while the other only a little, one got safer but the other stopped taking certain crime reports or started counting them a different way, residents suddenly stopped reporting certain crimes because they felt it was a waste of time, etc.? There's no context there, so your assumption doesn't stand to reason, nor does it mean what you are suggesting it means even if it does (theoretically all but the top country could be going in the wrong direction but all the rest could overtake us, etc.)

What's missing, of course (besides the context) is what exactly Team 0bama has done to improve our business climate and/or what he has proposed to improve it in the future (or keep it improving.) That would be the part of the argument where he's polling very badly, for good reason IMHO. Arguably other countries are in a worse position, but that doesn't make ours good or his handling of it anything less than embarrassing.

Oops, in my zeal to make my point I was off one line in the chart. What I posted was for the UK. US is actually:

1011 51010 41009 4

Not quite as good but still not cause for alarm.

Reading farther down the chart for 2011, we see:

Denmark 6Canada 7Norway 8

So it seems that social democracies do just fine in terms of providing a good environment for running a business. As far as that goes, the number one country on the list is Singapore which though lacking in the democracy area is relatively socialistic:

Singapore has what its government considers to be a highly successful and transparent market economy.(citations needed) Some people have labelled Singapore a social democracy,(citations needed) although the PAP has consistently rejected the notion of being socialist. However, some of PAP's policies do contain certain aspects of socialism, which includes government-owned public housing constituting the majority of real estate and the dominance of government controlled companies in the local economy. The Housing Development Board oversees a large-scale public housing programme and education in Singapore is a rigorous compulsory public education system. Although dominant in its activities, the government has a clean, corruption-free image. Singapore has consistently been rated as the least-corrupt country in Asia and amongst the top ten cleanest in the world by Transparency International.[4][5] The World Bank's governance indicators have also rated Singapore highly on rule of law, control of corruption and government effectiveness. However, it is widely perceived that some aspects of the political process, civil liberties, and political and human rights are lacking.[6] Singapore is a member of Asian Network of Major Cities 21.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Singapore

Singapore has a universal healthcare system where government ensures affordability, largely through compulsory savings and price controls, while the private sector provides most care. Overall spending on healthcare amounts to only 3% of annual GDP. Of that, 66% comes from private sources.[2] Singapore currently has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world (equaled only by Iceland) and among the highest life expectancies from birth, according to the World Health Organization.[3] Singapore has "one of the most successful healthcare systems in the world, in terms of both efficiency in financing and the results achieved in community health outcomes," according to an analysis by global consulting firm Watson Wyatt.[4] Singapore's system uses a combination of compulsory savings from payroll deductions (funded by both employers and workers) a nationalized catastrophic health insurance plan, and government subsidies, as well as "actively regulating the supply and prices of healthcare services in the country" to keep costs in check; the specific features have been described as potentially a "very difficult system to replicate in many other countries." Many Singaporeans also have supplemental private health insurance (often provided by employers) for services not covered by the government's programs.[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Singapore

Singapore with heavy government involvement spends 3% of GDP on health care compared to 17% of GDP in the US. Note that "a nationalized catastrophic health insurance plan" is exactly what I have been touting for the US.

So I would conclude that what matters is not what services are delivered by government but by how efficiently and cleanly the government operates.

Col What's missing, of course (besides the context) is what exactly Team Obama has done to improve our business climate

As you see from my followup post, we can't credit Obama with making it better. My real point is not the difference between ranking fourth or fifth, but the difference between fifth and 109th. The US is NOTHING like Greece in this department and implying that we are is just foolishness.

Hmmm...looks from the table like we slipped from 4 to 5 currently. UK was the one that gained from 6 to 4. From my admittedly dated experience in UK I find that puzzling. Could the respondents all be people who only speak English?

What's missing, of course (besides the context) is what exactly Team 0bama has done to improve our business climate and/or what he has proposed to improve it in the future (or keep it improving.)

No, what's missing is any evidence, any hint, indeed any possibility that the typically ignorant and silly teaparty claim that we're on the verge of being Greece is (or might in the forseeable future be) true. And the distance between 5,6,or 7 and 117th is sufficiently great that it ain't measurement error; Cynic's post is the usual bag of home made poo.

any evidence, any hint, indeed any possibility that the typically ignorant and silly teaparty claim that we're on the verge of being Greece is (or might in the forseeable future be) true.

You an safely ignore most teaparty remonstrations, as I ignore much of the leftist pap. Greece is just a country full of public and private sector crooks and tax evaders, so we can forget them, except for what they will cost honest people. And you can ignore my statement that there will be no economic recovery in America until it first gets quite a bit worse.

If you're rich enough you can wait things out. And discuss politics, or live it up.

OMG! If we let Obama have a second term, the US will be the best place in the world to do business.

Are you saying that increasing regulations are not a problem for businesses under Obama? He has certainly added a lot of regulations. And then there's Dodd-Frank, yet another really bad law rammed through by the Democratic supermajority. He has taken over major industries and dictated policy to other institutions. He has grabbed control of the health care industry. EPA regulations that have wiped out thousands of jobs already, environmental impact statements that preclude even starting or building in many areas, increasing restrictions and regulations over emissions which increase energy costs and the cost of other goods, a National Labor Relations Board that tells major industries where they can build plants, a pledge to destroy the coal industry, and on and on.

Obama finally acknowledged the harm that the EPA was doing to the economy when he halted implementation of the ozone emissions controls. That's a very good thing, but I fear that it's only a short pause in the EPA's march toward what appears to be the total destruction of the American economy.

Business leaders are certainly complaining a lot about all of these things. Are they lying? They cite this as one big reason that they are currently sitting on cash rather than investing in growth.

The Obama administration is really really trying hard to increase the strength of labor unions, too, although this has not become much of a factor so far in most areas. (FDR got in bed with labor unions and the result was that all through the period 1932 to 1937 some major industries were practically shut down with constant striking. Was it any wonder that the New Deal didn't end the Depression?)

Most of all there is fear about what this outrageously intrusive and anti-business government is going to do next.

No, it's not nearly as big a problem as it is in Greece. But Obama has put the country on the wrong course, and, yes, we really don't need another term from that guy. We don't need to be moving toward a Greek economy. The big government welfare state model doesn't work.

No, what's missing is any evidence, any hint, indeed any possibility that the typically ignorant and silly teaparty claim that we're on the verge of being Greece...

Well clearly we're just too big to fail. Hey, just because Greece couldn't pull off the free-lunch miracle that doesn't mean we can't! We're America!

LOL, as it happens the only difference between us and Greece in the end is a matter of scale. Not only can we go down the same road the liberals have already staked out the course, put in the GPS coordinates and are trying to make sure it's a one way street.

Mrcynic, you are forgetting about all those government jobs created with all these new regulations;-)

Yes, those jobs are actually mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Among the offences committed by the King of England against the people of the American colonies that prompted them to rebel, there is this one:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

"So I would conclude that what matters is not what services are delivered by government but by how efficiently and cleanly the government operates."

I've been saying that we need to increase efficiency, in government, for quite awhile now. We hear "reduce services" but never "manage services" more efficiently. Our entire government suffers from inefficiency and poor management.

Are you saying that increasing regulations are not a problem for businesses under Obama? He has certainly added a lot of regulations. And then there's Dodd-Frank, yet another really bad law rammed through by the Democratic supermajority. He has taken over major industries and dictated policy to other institutions. He has grabbed control of the health care industry. EPA regulations that have wiped out thousands of jobs already, environmental impact statements that preclude even starting or building in many areas, increasing restrictions and regulations over emissions which increase energy costs and the cost of other goods, a National Labor Relations Board that tells major industries where they can build plants, a pledge to destroy the coal industry, and on and on.

...

Business leaders are certainly complaining a lot about all of these things. Are they lying? They cite this as one big reason that they are currently sitting on cash rather than investing in growth.

Big Business leaders in the NAM and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are complaining, and they're the moneybags for the Tea Party. But small businessmen, who are by far the most important sector for creating new jobs, tell a different story. In a recent survey they said they are not worried about any new Federal regulations, nor are they worried about possible tax increases. They say the reason they are not hiring is they don't have the cash flow, because their customers are not buying, because they don't have enough income. This is the problem the Republicans refuse to address, because the only evident solutions are (gasp) Keynesian.

"I've been saying that we need to increase efficiency, in government, for quite awhile now. We hear "reduce services" but never "manage services" more efficiently. Our entire government suffers from inefficiency and poor management. "

Keep in mind the US Chamber of Commerce has little if any connection to the Chambers in cities and towns across America. Having been on the board of one in a small city, I can tell you that the small businesses see little value in what the "US Chamber" says or does. The small businesses are the ones creating jobs and none of them are zillionaires. Most of their money goes back into growing their business.